This invention relates generally to a front-loading mechanism of a videocassette recorder, and more particularly to an improved front-loading mechanism which may front-load a tape cassette by using the driving force of the existing reel motor.
The typical front-loading mechanism of a general VCR (Videocassette Recorder), which may load and unload a tape cassette from the front of the VCR, comprises a loading arm 7 having one end operatively connected to a loading motor 6 and the other end adapted to swing by a drive power of said motor 6 and provided with an end-opened slot 8, as shown in FIG. 2. The slot 8 receives one of guide pins 3 which protrude from respective side walls of a cassette holder 2 in which a tape cassette may be held. Each pin 3 also extends through a guide slot 5 formed at on each side wall 4 vertically mounted to a body of the VCR (not shown) and adapted to guide the cassette holder 2 between loading and unloading positions thereof as each pin 3 slides along the corresponding slot 5. By this arrangement, a counter-clockwise swing movement of the loading arm 7 effected by the drive power of the loading motor 6 causes the cassette holder 2 to be transferred from the unloading position indicated by a dotted line in FIG. 2 to a loading position indicated by a two dots-and-dashed line in FIG. 2, so that a tape cassette 1 is loaded on a reel table 9. When the tape cassette 1 has to be ejected from the cassette holder 2, the loading arm 7 swings in the reverse direction to that mentioned above by the drive power of the motor 6, so that the cassette holder 2 is transferred from the loading position to the unloading position, thereby enabling the tape cassette 1 to be ejected from the cassette holder 2.
However, such prior front-loading mechanism is costly to produce since it requires a separate motor for front-loading the cassette tape.
It is also known in this prior art to front-load the tape cassette by using the power from the tape loading motor which drives the tape loading mechanism to draw the tape from the cassette and load it on the running system. However, this prior art also has the problem of requiring a complicated mechanism using a solenoid and an epicyclic gear.